Serenity
AI & Semiconductor Supply-Chain Researcher, Trader
SKC is one of the glass core substrate leaders, with CHIPS Act funding at about a $5.5 billion market cap, as markets start pricing glass as the next memory or photonics-style trade. Its copper foil and EV legacy drag seems to be bottoming. Its financials look like a dumpster fire, but that is largely priced in and better than US peers with $6 billion-plus of dilution. Debt-funded buildout and legacy drag make it riskier than HB Technology, which supplies optical inspection to SKC's Absolics. x.com x.comÂ
SKC is the pure lead in glass substrates, with its Absolics unit due in the second half of 2026 as first mover. Applied Materials gets equipment revenue first, but SKC captures the margin at the substrate layer, the actual choke point. Intel's reported 2030 timeline is irrelevant to the near-term trade. Per TrendForce timelines cited by @aleabitoreddit, Absolics serves AMD customers, with Samsung Electro-Mechanics following in the second half of 2027. x.comÂ
LPKF Laser & Electronics and Schmid Group shares should deflate fast because glass-core substrates are not expected to be adopted until 2030, per @AtlasShrug1 citing @pequityresearch, a long wait for any ramp. x.comÂ
Glass-core substrate suppliers such as Corning, LPKF, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, SKC and AGC remain early, as the sector is still some way from shipping real volume. Part 4 of @GyujinAAIG's glass research shows how far each group is, mapping substrate makers on a one-to-ten readiness scale and chip designers on a separate one-to-fourteen scale. x.comÂ
IC substrates are Schmid's more relevant growth driver today because demand is already high and rising. Schmid customers Ibiden and Unimicron are expanding capacity with NVIDIA support; higher order intake supports the prospect of more equipment orders. Its balance sheet has improved, and the risk/reward looks attractive at current levels despite volatility. Glass substrates may take another one to two years to matter commercially. This is a personal assessment, not a buy recommendation. x.com … Show more
SCHMID may be benefiting from a new substrate plant in Singapore, per an unconfirmed hint. x.comÂ
LPKF Laser is a bottleneck supplier for glass substrates, the next-generation AI packaging material Intel, Samsung and TSMC are piloting. Glass cracks when drilled, and LPKF's LIDE is one of very few processes that structure glass at production scale without cracking, so no glass ecosystem gets built without a tool like it. Management says the question is now when the ramp begins, not whether. Besi trades at 77x EBITDA on advanced packaging; upstream names trade at fractions of that. x.comÂ
PlanOptik's latest report is likely its last transition report, with a very different company emerging as capacity ramps. Expectations are high for 2027 component launches showing what it can do with silicon, not just glass, followed by glass core substrates. Progress is already hidden in the numbers: automotive MEMS and sensors, historically most of revenue and weak, are holding. @KairosPraxis notes revenue grew 5.7% and EBITDA 8.9%, with heavy recent capex set to lift revenue and margins. … Show more
LPKF's glass-substrate thesis has barely started even after the stock's run. Its LIDE process drills defect-free through-glass vias at production speed with aspect ratios up to 1:50, and glass is the only material that solves CTE mismatch, dielectric loss and warpage at once, where silicon interposers cannot scale. Over 80% of major players chose LPKF equipment for validation, a de facto standard; first production orders came in Q1 2026, and the 2027 mass-production ramp hits the P&L hard. x.comÂ
MEC could still double to about a $2B market cap by 2027 if its CZ Series chemical becomes the undisputed requirement for the glass substrates that companies such as Intel and Samsung are moving toward for 2028-2030. That would scale revenue to about $250-300M. x.comÂ
LPKF faces mostly lumpy, cancelable pilot-line revenue until 2029, while the market already prices in much of its glass substrate option. Volume demand for its glass equipment hinges on TSMC and NVIDIA choosing glass for CoPoS panel packaging; that wave lands around 2028-29 and could slip to end-2030 on warpage and yield issues. Absolics' and Semco's 2027 plans are qualification. The real signals are TSMC's CoPoS tool-vendor selection and an LPKF order above EUR 10M naming a Tier-1 customer. … Show more